Tym Glaser, Associate Editor - Sports

SOME TACTICS work in cricket and some don't; that's just the way it goes.

However, sometimes there are moves which defy any sort of logic and backfire horrendously.

Australian skipper Ricky Ponting putting England in to bat on a belter of an Edgbaston pitch in 2005 without the services of strike bowler Glenn McGrath comes immediately to mind as classic brain-freeze and led, ultimately, to the loss of the Ashes.

Somewhere within the Jamaica cricket team's brains trust there is still probably a feeling that skipper Chris Gayle's demotion down the order to number five in the final of the Stanford Twenty20 competition was a simply splendid idea that just didn't quite come off on the night.

Okay, let me spell it out to them - it was S-T-O-O-P-I-D!

Gayle, one of the most punishing openers in cricket and the only man to have an international 20/20 ton, claims he was out of form and decided to give 'form' bats Xavier Marshall and Shawn Findlay the opening roles.

An out-of-form Gayle, with one foot and one hand, is still a better opening proposition than either Marshall or Findlay, who are yet to even establish themselves in the Jamaica team.

And then, why come in so low at five?

Okay, you probably want to keep the other big bat in the side, Marlon Samuels, in his best position at three, but Danza Hyatt ahead of Gayle, too?

Ultimate tonic

Sure, Hyatt had a good tournament and finished with the second highest run aggregate, but he ain't half-a-Gayle either, and with things going so pearshaped for Jamaica against Trinidad and Tobago, the ultimate tonic would have been for Jamaica's two best, Samuels and Gayle, to come together as early as possible to right the ship.

Instead, Gayle came in at 48 for three with 8.3 overs - or 51 valuable balls - already gone.

He swished around for six runs off 10 balls and then was bowled by Man-of-the-Match Dave Mohammed. That was still six more runs than stand-in opener Findlay, who lasted two balls, made.

While Gayle steadfastly denies T&T gained any psychological advantage from his drop down the order, Trini skipper Daren Ganga begged to differ, and who can blame him when your opponent's biggest bat comes in with a little more than 10 overs to go.

Show no signs of weakness

As a captain, no matter how bad your form, you can't show the other side any signs of weakness. If Gayle had made a duck opening the batting, so what? That's how it goes. By sitting in the dressing room as the top order collapsed, it showed the Trinis he was woefully out of form or wasn't up for the fight.

Either way, it was a tremendous fillip for the men in red and black who gained confidence, ball by ball. It also seemed to sap the Jamaicans as they batted terribly and bowled worse on their way to that nine-wicket thrashing.

Still, I think Gayle's going to be a fine captain of both Jamaica and the West Indies with some more experience.

Hopefully, the chastening experience in Antigua on Sunday night has shown him that captains always have to lead from the front and damn the silly tactics.

Later ...

Feedback: tym.glaser@gleanerjm.com